Bangladesh sees the Tipaimukh Dam an act of Hydo-terror by India
Case against Tipaimukh Dam: A Himalayan Blunder
The Tipaimukh project was originally conceived in 1955 as a barrage to control flood in Barak Valley in Assam and had nothing to do with Manipur. Subsequently the emphasis has shifted to hydro-electric power generation with irrigation and other benefits as spin-offs. People from both India and Bangladesh are opposing this project. Nazmul Alam investigates the real of it.
The TIPAIMUKH (or Tuiruong to the local indigenous Hmar people) dam is located at Churachandpur district, the SW corner of Manipur[1] It is almost on the border with Mizoram[2] where the river Barak[3] takes a 220 degree turn from SW to the northerly direction flowing through a gorge. According to the International Commission on Large Dams (1928), any such structure of at least of 15 meter high with a water storage capacity of 15.9 million cubic meter or more is to be called a large dam. The huge (390 meter long and of 163 meter high head concrete monster at the altitude of 180 meter above the sea-level and 500 meters down the confluence of Barak and Tuivai river with billions of cube meter (M3) reservoir (minimum draw dawn level or MDDL 136 meter, and a maximum of 178 meter giving a storage capacity: 15, 900 million cubic meter with maximum depth of 1725 meter, the largest in India) is situated barely 100 km from the Bangladesh border.
It is a multi-purpose project in the sense that the project is designed to harness electricity from 6×250- MW (1500MW ) power house, work as a flood control dam for Monipur and the neighboring Mizoram and provide irrigation of at least 3.1 lakh hectare of cultivable lands using water of the huge reservoir and of the Tuivai or Barak river the second largest river in the region, providing 7-8% of the total inflow to Bangladesh and mother of Surma- Kushiyara[4] and the Meghna[5] (SKM) system, one of the three major life lines: Ganga/Padma[6], Meghna, Brahmaputra[7] (GMB) that have formed the biggest delta on the mouth of the biggest bay in the world.
Critics however, may term a multi-purpose dam that ensconces within itself a host of conflicting purposes. Such a cross- purpose dam can only validate the Biblical dictum that one can not serve two masters at the same time. For, irrigation uses up water required to produce power, while flood control requires keeping the reservoir empty during the monsoon months to deal with an anticipated surfeit of water. The Tipaimukh project was originally conceived in 1955 as a barrage to control flood in Barak Valley in Assam and had nothing to do with Manipur. Subsequently the emphasis has shifted to hydro-electric power generation[8] with irrigation and other benefits as spin-offs.
2.0. The construction process was staggered principally on the face of opposition from the the local people. It has received a boost-up with recent clearance from the environment agency and the construction is now scheduled to be completed by 2012 if every thing goes right. Though the dam will have an installed capacity of 1500MW of electricity, according to a study report (1998) of the North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO) the sponsoring agency, the best possible scenario envisages a firm generation capacity of 401.25 MW only on the basis of the plant load factor of 28% of the installed capacity, typical for a hydro-electric plant[9].
This implies that at most 412 MW power could be generated regularly. The estimated cost (Rs 15.9 billion, of which Rs.51638.6 million has already been spent in design) is surely to escalate with the gestation period implying cost and time over run. The host state of Manipur is expected to get a maximum of 10-12% share of the generated power (40-45MW) as per standard agreement between the state and the central government of India at the cost of incalculable loss to the ecosystem initiating a catastrophic irreversible damage which is bound affect Bangladesh as a lower riparian neighbor. The possibility of electricity sharing by Bangladesh, as suggested by some, is simply a travesty of truth. This is firstly because of the meager net output and secondly, because of absence of any such facility in the design as admitted by the sponsors themselves.[10]
Given the backdrop one can reasonably surmise why such a self-inflicting colossal investment is made to harvest peanuts. Is it to teach a lesson to the rebellious sons of the eastern seven sister states [11] or a manifest schadenfreude towards a neighbor not particularly keen to genuflect before a big brother? Was it not possible to resist the disease of gigantism and adopt small hydropower plants[12]or economically more sustainable smaller Weiss/ Run-of-the-River (RoR) schemes elsewhere to minimize the human induced disaster?[13]
The expected maximum head (difference between reservoir water level and power generation unit), in the case of Tipaimukh project is about 160m. But at Loktak Lake[14], in the same region, the head is about 269m- about 100m more than that of the proposed Tipaimukh project). So, why not harness the potential from an alternative and safe site like the lake Loktak of Manipur? Why such a tremendous head is wasted for a diabolic contraption sure to strangulate lifeline of a neighbor? Are the potentially dangerous mega dams the only source of power?[15] What about the increasing success stories of power generation from non renewable sources? For whose benefit and for what benefit or to convey exactly what message the project is being executed by the big neighbor?
Is it also part of the game plan that the foreign ministry should play the role of Prima Donna with expected faux from an uninitiated innocent thing while the Water Resources Ministry in the know of the hard-nosed facts and seasoned negotiators be relegated to play the second fiddle from the margin? For whose benefit and for what benefit the issue is conspicuous by its absence in public debate despite nauseating TV talk shows of the veteran fast cats of the so called civil society? Why the Parliament too seems to seek refuge in the dictum: silence is golden when even a Dostoyoskian idiot would recall T.S. Elliot: With such knowledge, what forgiveness?
3.0. The dam is likely to submerge 288- 311 sq.. km habitat area of 16 villages, disposes 1,320 indigenous people, endanger 90 more villages of the adjacent Tamelong area and wipe out already rare species of reptiles and mammals, destroy more than 27 thousand hectares of forests and mountains including orchards rich in medicinal and herbal plants, undermine navigation of Barak and several other rivers by putting a hold on 17, 354 cusec flow on the Indian side. In Bangladesh the dam will have particular adverse effect on all the districts of the greater Sylhet, plus two each of the greater Mymensingh, greater Dhaka and three of the greater Comlla, nine districts in all.[16] And all these will be wrought on the dystopian slogan of local pain for national gain in the form of an electric bulb from every tree. (Jiten Yumnam: 2009).
3.1 Effect on for the lower riparian country Bangladesh is bound to be more catastrophic than Farakka,[17] and a second albatross on the cursed neck with perhaps many more to follow as we are yet to have an agreement on water sharing foe 53 of the 54 rivers flowing in from India. Thus the project site, barely one hundred kilometer upstream north from the Zakiganj-Karimganj[18] international border, Sylhet, turns out not only one of a series of mega projects for energy hungry India, but also one of the most sinister one, eventually to control the Meghna through Barak as it did with Farakka to control Padma through Ganga with, surely many more to follow
4.0. The THEMP has already come to represent development aggression, in utter indifference to Indias own environmental rules requiring free, prior or informed consent (FPIC) of the local people, or their voiced or concern of the people of lower riparian Bangladesh by furnishing any Detailed Project Report (DPR), despite assurance from the then Minster for Water Resources of India (Priya Rangan Das Munshi) given as early as in September, 2005.[19] Recent reports of damage of drilling machines of NEEPCO, the sponsoring agency, exposes the fact that construction work is already in full swing, with little respect for all existing human rights and developmental standards, including guidelines of the World Commission on Dams for construction of dams.
5.0. The project seems to have been launched like an army operation and one can visualize establishment of a cantonment first at the dam site (as is there at Farakka) to ward off attempts to undermine the construction as have already been made by the local rebellious groups in more than one occasion. One wonders if the dam water is going to act as octane to the already existing fire of agitation among the local inhabitants.[20]
6.0. It is claimed that the NE region of India has the potential of about 58,971 MW of electricity from its flowing rivers, representing 40% of the current electricity demand of India out of which less than 2% (1095MW) have been harnessed so far. The Tipaimukh hydel project turns out to be the biggest of the six such projects undertaken by the NEEPCO under the XII plan (2012-2017). But the region and particularly the site selected for the project in also happens to be one of the most geologically unstable area. The region is one of the six most tectonically active areas of the world that includes California, Japan, Mexico, Turkey and Taiwan. The dam site itself is in the most seismo-tectonic zones.[21] of the eastern India.
6.1. This is because the fact that the structural-tectonic features of Indo-Myanmar region (IMR) in general and Manipur in particular evolved through interaction between India and the Myanmar plates rather than the Indian-Eurasian (Chinese) plates under shear deformation mechanism which is still active in the region. The faults and fractures around the dam axis belongs to a category that may undergo strike-slip and extension movements causing considerable displacement like moderate to large earthquakes and, a displacement by a mere a few centimeter along the dam axis is enough to cause a major dam disaster. Thus the proposed dam axis falls on a fault line potentially active and a possible epicenter for another major earthquake. In addition, the reservoir o0f the dam itself may trigger an earthquake
6.2. It has further been claimed that well-designed and constructed rock fill dams are the safest type for large height dams. Needless to say, such claims are made for ideal conditions without taking into account of the condition of the dam site. Tipaimukh would be among the largest of such dams in the world. But what is not mentioned is geo-morphological condition of the site itself. The gigantic (90m high) earth-filled Teton Dam in US collapsed in less than one and a half hour deluging the down stream with 20 m high waves. The Chinese-built a large and high dam in Cameroon, Africa, and 40km east of the Nigerian border on the Benue River in 1980. Design flood for this large dam was taken as 50,000-year period flood. In the high hilly drainage basin of the dam, there was very high rainfall with consequent abnormal rise of water level of the reservoir in 1988 flood season, almost overtopping the dam. It was a rock-fill dam on which overtopping might have resulted in washing away of the dam with catastrophic consequences for both countries.
The Huaccoto Dam in Peru was 170 m high, similar to the Tipaimukh Dam; failed within 48 hours due to a natural landslide in the reservoir. Fact is the old fashioned rock-filled design is basically outmoded and given the seismic-tectonic characteristic of the site, the dam does carry potential risk of great ecological catastrophe: human and environmental. Hence for a dam in a hilly earthquake-prone and a high intensity rain region like Tipaimukh, a 100,000 to 500,000-year design flood should have been undertaken. In all probability that has not been done. If it had indeed been done, the several episodes of dam failure would have turned up in the study. Clearly, over enthusiasm for the dam has pushed a through dam-break study for Tipaimukh at the back seat.
7.0. It is not a fact that the downstream adverse effects of a Tipaimukh Dam-break have been not been studied by the Government of Bangladesh .Since 1992-94, the Flood Action Plan 6 (FAP 6) which had a Future Without Plan component that looked at a dam-break scenario on the basis of whatever data on the project were made available through the Joint Rivers Commission (JRC)[22]. At that time, the dam reservoir water is planned to be diverted for irrigation in Catcher District of India at the cost of water flow down the Surma and Kushiara in Bangladesh, particularly its North Eastern Region.
7.1. As no statement was available how much water Indian intends to siphon off through the project , it was assumed for FAP-6 that the total depth of irrigation water would be 1 M and that the water would be diverted on a continuous basis during the six dry months (November through April). With that rather sober assumption, a dam-break scenario[23] was also envisaged by the experts. It transpired that the Dam posed serious adverse consequences for the Surma, Kushiyara and Meghna River system with likelihood of major tectonic realignment with decreased weight of the water load. Assuming the events as random with a simple binomial probability model with a return period of 30 to 50 years, there would be 40-60% probability of a major earthquake (7.6 magnitudes) with epicenter at Srimangal of Maulavibazar by 2015 (similar to the 8 July 1918 event) causing severe disruptions in river channels, collapse of river banks and directions. Assuming a return period of 300-1000 years, there was a 2-5% probability of a really large (8.7magnitude) earthquake at the Shillong Plateau as the epicenter (similar to the one of 12 June 1897), the largest on record causing major change in the existing morphologic trends and even inducing re-configuration of the total drainage system.
7.2 The study is corroborated by reports of past disasters. The District Gazetteer of Assam (1917) reported on the 1899 earthquake along the Brahmaputra River informing that Strong ground shaking triggered liquefaction of river cross-sections in a few seconds,..bottom of the river heaved, the banks lowered; water immediately started to rise and overflow the banks and adjacent zones where infilling of the channels took place. Natural sills formed causing temporary lakes to develop; channels gradually re-opened by scouring where currents were strong enough, and water levels decreased.
7.3 Generally, a flood wave is found to travels downstream at a rate in the order of 10 km /hr reaching velocities as high as 30 km/ hr. This implies that in case of collapse of a large dam like Tipaimukh, the initial flood wave could reach the eastern limit of Bangladesh, say of 200 km from the dam site, in 24-48 hours, inundating to a depth of about 5 meter. Further, due to small gradient slowing the gravity flow, may take several weeks to drain out the water of the enormous reservoir keeping the Northeast Region pended for quite some time. A release volume of 10 Mm3, for instance, could keep a ponded area of 100 km2, on the depth of 1.0 m above the normal flood level. How one is expected to respond to such a deluge? Ask for a Noahs arc?
8.0 In general, it can reasonably be said that environmental degradation, economic crisis and hydrological drought will cause colossal irreversible damage to Bangladesh. The free flowing Surma and Kushyara rivers supporting internal navigation agriculture, irrigation navigation, drinking water supply, industries like fertilizer, electricity, gas etc.fisheries, wildlife in numerous haors and low lying areas in the entire Sylhet division and some peripheral areas of Dhaka division will suddenly dry up and remain so particularly during November to May.
8.1 Water flow in Meghna is likely to fall by about 80% during winter and by 25% during the rest of the season adversely affecting 2 million inhabitants in Cacher-Karimganj in India, 12 million in greater Sylhet,6 million in greater Comilla,,4 million in greater Noakhali, 6 million in greater Dhaka, i.e. about 30 million in Bangladesh alone.[24] Agriculture based on tube wells will become dysfunctional.
8.2 Massive environmental degradation will occur, drastically affecting weather and climate, turning a wet cooler habitat into a hot uncomfortable cauldron.
8.3 Scarcity of water will cause siltation on river beds. High rainfall in the catchments area of the dam, will release enormous quantity of sediment-laden flood water causing severity of flood in the silted up channels of Surma and Kushyara causing floods in adjoining additional areas.
8.4 Navigation in the lower Meghna will become next-to impossible with severe deplete of water flow and consequential increased sedimentation, severity in flooding during the wet season and in the dry season, the upper Meghna up to Chandpur may simply dry up.
In short, the adverse effect of the Tipaimukh project on our water resource management, would be worse than what the Farakka has wrought on the G.K. Project[25]
9.0 It has been suggested that the Government of Bangladesh should formally and immediately request the Union Government of India, to stop the construction of the Dam, taking advantage of the relationship existing between the governments of the two countries at the moment through JRC and bi-lateral diplomatic forum like SAARC during which all works on the dam should strictly be kept in abeyance.
9.1 It has also been suggested that if nothing tangible comes out from such negotiations within a reasonable given time frame, we should seek intervention by United Nations under the 1815 Vienna Meet for settlement of the dispute as it was met for instance, between Czechoslovakia (later Slovakia) and Hungary on water sharing of Danube by the International Court of Justice in 1921. It may also be recalled that the Indus river water dispute was also successfully negotiated between India and Pakistan with the assistance of the World Bank. The Mekong River water dispute was also resolved through such intervention by the UN. So our problem is not quite a unique one: there are about 214 rivers in the world that flow through more than one country and out of these, at least nine [26]are flowing through as many as half a dozen x countries. It has also been stated that the different provision of various agreements, treaties, conventions may be invoked to buttress our stand like: violation of the 1996 Indo-Bangladesh Treaty on Ganges water sharing, UN Convention on water sharing of 1997, UN Declaration of basic Human Rights of 1948,,Convention on Biodiversity( CBD), World Bank guidelines for conservation of the environment, UN Development Conventions, Guidelines of the World Dam Commission, etc. to resolve the issue acceptable to all the stake holders.
9.2 It has further been recommended that we should lend our voice to the protest raised by the indigenous people of the dam-site for a free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) as provided under the International convention [27] The argument runs: If their problems can be solved through mediation of a third party, why not our? [28]
All these are noble suggestions. But the caveat lies in the reality the socio-economic and cultural norms that prevail amongst those economies are quite different from what is here in our South Asia. Our foreign policy is professedly based on friendship to all and enmity to none. In reality, however, there prevails a sense of uneasiness, being a tiny neighbor next to a giant of overwhelming influence.
10.0 What is of most importance is that the International Conventions are less than clear on these issues. It is true that the Convention, Protection and Use of Tran-boundary Water courses and Tran-boundary Lakes of 1992 provided some bindings for environmental protection (Article 2, 2b). Articles 5a, 5b also refers to sustainability. In the Helsinki Agreement, there is a full article (Article 22) on issue of dispute settlement. It is also true that this Convention has been adopted by the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in 1997 with duty to cooperate in protection and development (Article 5) protection of the ecosystem (Article20-23), provision for dispute settlement (Article 33).But all these are for advanced rational societies where one can still discern modicum of civility and methods even in their apparent madness. The only basic frame work for any international agreement between states sharing a common water course is still the UN Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational uses of international waters of 1997.
But the snag is that to make the Convention binding, there is a minimum requirement of 35 signatories while till date, only 15 member-states have put their signatures on it.[29] The Berlin Rules on Water Resources (2004) with its particular provision for settlement of International water disputes (Chapter 14) mooted by the International Law Association is also yet to be a binding Convention.
11.0 Quite a few have suggested that as the first step, the Joint River Commission,(JRC) which remains mostly dysfunctional, should jump- start spade works for a summit meet at the topmost level of the government as an exclusive agenda sharing for water sharing of the Bramhaputra, Meghna basins on just and equitable basis, buttressed by the International consensus. Other stake holding states can also be factored in at subsequent stages, if possible, as the area of the total catchments of the Ganga-Meghna- Bramhaputra,(GMB) that have largely created the delta itself is about eleven times larger than the total land mass of Bangladesh, Such a phased out plan for water sharing of the common rivers at the soonest is all the more imperative on the face of increasing crisis for sweet water all over the globe and one need not be terribly upset if the next world war is flashed not by oil but by demands for sweet water.. How can we possibly forget that Bangladesh is essentially product of its 230 or so rivers, the total length of all these rivers would cover fifteen thousand miles and yet, there is a gradual dying of all the rivers every day? How can we possibly ignore the fact that existence of at least twenty rivers of Bangladesh are at a stake and out of these, fifteen have already dried up. They exist on the map only but in reality, we have lost them forever. How can we possibly ignore the fact that due to frequent change in course and other causes, we have already lost thousand of acres land to India[30].
Hence, the team/ teams of Parliament members and of experts supposed to visit the Tipaimukh dam site, as recently declared by a cabinet member, should ask their Indian counterparts for design/survey data, drawings/maps etc, and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report prepared by the dam authority to check-up if the Dam Break Study and EIA study have been made properly.
All these are admittedly reasonable propositions and there is no harm in attempting them. The JRC can be given a new lease of life and even the proposal to approach and stand up before the UN to voice our rightful claim in no uncertain terms, can also be ventured by our foreign ministry. But what worries most is the bitter experience that we have from past quixotic grand pronouncements and half-hearted attempts ending the initial bangs in small whimpers. How can we possibly forget the reality that the complex web of hydro-politics inexorably leads to an inextricable interdependence, particularly between two asymmetric neighbors allowing little scope to voice its inconveniences?
11.0 We may conclude with the observation that Nature does not respect man-made political orders and the history of human civilization is also history of rivers. We can claim to control them but at the end of the day, any such vainglorious attempt is doomed to relics of the dead as the artifacts and the very name of MoenzoDaro literally suggests. As observed by Arundhati Roy, big multipurpose hydro-electric projects are big contradictions and building them in earthquake-prone areas like Tipaimukh, is too big a mistake to be resolved by the god of small things like livelihood of the common men.
10.2 It is said that The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives. India, with third largest number of dams in the world, is precisely sowing in the wind to reap the whirlwind. In one hand, with blessings of the sole global super power, she desires to play an increasingly pivotal role in the comity of nations, and on the other, brazenly disowning to be her brothers keeper as well by manifest indifference towards an equitable and just sharing of the common water courses, numbering almost 300, and about 40% of the global peoples living depends around them.
10.3 Given the condition what course can we possibly seek to solve, if not to dissolve the issue? It seems that the most unique character of the people of Bangladesh is that, in their heart of hearts, there is an indomitable spirit that can be ignored by any only at his/her own peril. That spirit was once manifest in 1947, 1952-54, in 19707, over and over again, during every watershed of the national history. That is the spirit that once flickered during the different peasant revolts against a visibly incomparably superior adversary. That is the spirit that keeps life surviving after devastating surges and cyclones that periodically visit us with all their fury. In the circumstances, the very least that we can do is to sensitize the people about urgency of the issue, to kindle once again that promethean spirit, transforming them to what the in science is termed a singular soliton If a grain of faith can move a mountain, as the scriptures assure us, a united, solid phalanx of 150 million can surely bring a goliath to its knees and hopefully, to its senses; reduce the mountain to a mole hill. In other words, the challenge is not so much of diplomatic adroit maneuverings and outwitting chessmanship as of arousing the nation from its slumber by taking into folds people of all strains of political convictions and motivate them to stand up against the diabolical design to obliterate the very existence as a nation. Is it too much to expect that the leadership should come from the daughter of the very architect of the nation? This is a real challenge for both the Water and the Foreign Affairs Ministry and above all, for both the leaders of Position and the Opposition to rise above party tribalism and present a united front for the sake of the singular objective: survival of the nation.
Seismic map of the eastern India, indicative of intense tectonic activity in the region around the Tipaimukh dam site.
Bangladesh sees the Tipaimukh Dam an act of Hydo-terror by India - Dhaka Bangladesh - Zimbio
